Modern rifle and handgun cartridges have four components: the cartridge case, the primer, the propellant, and the bullet. The most costly and critical component of a cartridge is the case. Not only does it hold all of the other components, but the case provides a precision seal that ensures expanding gases remain in the firearm and efficiently push the bullet out of the firearm's barrel.
The brass case is often capable of being reused several times before it is no longer suitable for use. Because the case accounts for about 65% of the cost of ammunition, many shooters are therefore motivated to reduce their cost per shot by reloading spent cases for reuse.
However, reducing the cost per shot is not the only factor motivating the reloading of spent cases. Reloaders are able to custom tune the reloaded ammunition to their firearm's particular characteristics. Adjusting the cartridge length to the maximum the firearm will allow can greatly improve accuracy, as can loading the cartridge with a particular bullet weight or style. Furthermore, a reloader can safely assemble reduced velocity ammunition that will subject an inexperienced shooter to less recoil. Finally, reloading enables owners of obsolete firearms to continue to shoot even when factory ammunition is no longer available.
The process of reloading ammunition requires a reloading press, powder measure, priming system, calipers, scale, and a set of reloading dies. The press is a specialized device designed expressly for reloading ammunition. It holds the reloading dies in precise alignment and provides mechanical advantage required to recondition the cartridge case.
The reloading dies, which typically are a sizing die and a seating die, are customized for the case they are intended to load. The sizing die reshapes the case to the dimensions needed to permit easy chambering. The sizing die also ejects the spent primer by the use of a decaping pin attached to a spindle and ensures the case's mouth is the proper diameter to receive a new bullet when a pistol case is being reloaded. If a rifle case is being reloaded, there is an expander ball on the spindle. The seating die aligns the bullet with the case and pushes it into the case to the desired depth.
In conventional practice, a bullet is placed on the mouth of a charged case and is held in place by the reloader's thumb and forefinger. The case head is placed atop the ram of the press. The ram is raised, pushing the casing neck into the seating die. As this occurs, the user releases the bullet and gives the press handle a full stroke to seat the bullet in the case.
The conventional approach suffers the disadvantage of requiring the user to manually hold a bullet on the mouth of a charged case while raising the ram. This creates the potential for injury and increases the time required to reload a casing. And, especially in the case of rifle case reloading, any imprecision in the alignment of the bullet with the casing can result in inaccuracy when the reloaded case is fired. Other conventional bullet feeding mechanisms exist, but are mechanically complex, unreliable, or expensive. In the case of rifle case reloading, other conventional bullet feeding mechanisms are often limited to loading only rifle cases of a specific length.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and improved bullet feed die assembly that feeds bullets into cartridges of different lengths. In this regard, the various embodiments of the present invention substantially fulfill at least some of these needs. In this respect, the bullet feed die assembly according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of feeding bullets into cartridges of different lengths.